


the smallest of gestures (in short shallow gasps)

by AudreyV



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexuality, Blindfolds, Complicated Relationships, Developing Relationship, Drunk Sex, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Infant Death, Love Confessions, Multi, OT3, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Porn with Feelings, Pre-OT3, Pregnancy, Threesome - F/F/M, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-14 18:08:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10541772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AudreyV/pseuds/AudreyV
Summary: The first time it happens, it's Frank's fault, or it's the tequila's fault. The second time it happens, Laurel blames Bonnie and whiskey. This time, she’s stone cold sober and it’s definitely her fault.It makes her wonder how much she can want or have before she has to admit she’s spoiled, selfish and greedy.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Man, these three. Such sad, broken people, all desperately searching for something.
> 
> I was planning to call this "All This and Heaven, Too" but there's already an excellent HTGAWM fic by that title, so I dug deeper into the lyrics for this one. 
> 
> Set in a vague AU future where Frank's back in the fold, complete with beard and suit, Laurel was never pregnant and no one died in the fire. 
> 
> *Flaurel positive, Bonk positive, Laurel x Bonnie (who should have a ship name) positive, OT3 positive.*

The first time it happens, it’s Frank’s fault, or it’s the tequila’s fault. Laurel’s the kind of hazy drunk where she blinks and minutes pass and the world is squishy and muted. Tilting, whirling drunk but not absolved of her guilt in this drunk, fingers twining in silky hair in an effort just to stay level drunk.

(She tells herself that, but that’s not the only reason her hands keep tugging Bonnie closer and closer.)

If the world would stop spinning, she might be able to figure out what Frank’s doing to Bonnie that makes her breath catch like that.She wants to know so she can make that tiny, choked noise come out of Bonnie too.

Bonnie moans against Laurel’s thigh and everything spins.

Laurel wakes up alone the next morning with her body smelling like a foreign land she’s sure she must have visited before. Frank’s cologne, sweat, sex, lilacs, tequila— it clings to her. She feels dirty but she likes it.

(She gets herself off one last time to a hazy memory of thrashing between them before she forces herself to shower it all away.)

 

The second time it happens, Laurel blames Bonnie and whiskey. Bonnie presses drink after drink into her hands, and Laurel takes them, every sip making her less culpable in their disaster. She doesn’t need to be wasted to want to get either or both of them off with her mouth, but she can’t just tell them that.

(In the weeks since the first time, it’s the only thing she can think about when they’re all in the same room, how to engineer a second coming of that very bad idea.)

“I want him to fuck me while I go down on you.” Laurel’s blunt on purpose. When Bonnie’s smirk falters for a second, replaced by a look of surprise, Laurel takes it as a victory, even though the mask snaps back up again almost instantly.

“I hope you can make it worth my while.” Bonnie pulls off her underwear and raises an eyebrow. Laurel takes it as the challenge it is, employing every technique she learned from the sharp-edged women she fucked in college.

(Human sexuality is a dazzling spectrum. Laurel’s always liked fucking women, getting her mouth and chin sticky and hot, making them clench around her fingers. She can’t imagine not liking it.)

“Nobody’s even touched you and you’re soaking wet,” Frank teases. “If I’d known you like pussy this much, I would have gotten another chick in here ages ago.”

“What makes you think any woman would do? Maybe it's just Bonnie I like.” Laurel turns her head so she can quirk an eyebrow at him. She thinks she sees a shadow of concern cross Frank’s face, but then he grins.

“Like whoever you wanna like,” he says, rolling on a condom. He gets behind her and slides his cock between her lips, teases for a few moments before sinking into her. Laurel groans raggedly and rests her head momentarily on Bonnie’s hip.When she looks up, she’s captivated by the way Bonnie’s lips curve up at the corners in a half-pleased, half-predatory smirk.

Laurel drags her focus back to ravaging Bonnie with her mouth as Frank’s hand snakes around to toy with her.His thrusts push her forward; Laurel mirrors them as the lines between them go soft and indistinct. Frank fills her, over and over again, and Bonnie’s fingers are rough in her hair and being surrendered between them is even better than Laurel could have imagined.

(Bonnie reaches for her hand, squeezes it hard as she comes like it’s the only solid thing in the world. She moans Laurel’s name, elongates it like it’s music. The last notes are fading as Frank echoes it, groans it in her ear.Laurel tips over the edge as the sound of her name on their lips reverberates inside her and even before she’s come down from the high she wants to hear each of them say it like that again.)

 

The balance shifts a little more every time. They drink less and less, until it only takes one or two glasses of wine before Laurel is brave enough to unzip her dress and let it fall to the floor in the middle of Bonnie’s living room. 

Laurel wants, and it pulls her in so many directions.She thinks Frank feels it too, but she’s not sure about Bonnie.She’s learned how to strip Bonnie bare and she does it at every opportunity.Laurel takes her clothes, the prickly armor she wears under them, even her words, leaving her with only whimpers, moans and an achingly transparent face. She learns Bonnie’s body, but the workings of her brain remain a mystery.Sometimes she catches Bonnie looking at her and it makes her stomach dip and spin. She thinks that look must mean something but she doesn't know what.

Laurel’s lost count of how many times they’ve been just drunk enough to crash into each other, stopped keeping track of who was to blame, but on this night she’s stone cold sober and it’s definitely her fault. Frank’s at his cousin Joey’s bachelor party and she’s home alone, buttoning a pair of jeans over the raciest underwear she owns. She’s been waiting for this all week. She probably should feel guilty but all she feels is nervous.

Bonnie looks puzzled when she opens the door. She’s in her pajamas already, black pants that look soft and an oversized t-shirt. Laurel realizes it’s Frank’s and her gut clenches. She pushes in, shuts the door, and spins them around so she can pin Bonnie against it.

“What is this?” Bonnie asks breathlessly. Laurel knows Bonnie’s made of razors but in the dim light she almost seems delicate. (Suddenly all Laurel wants to do is break her, shatter her into a hundred pieces, see if her edges are sharp enough to do damage or if it's all a carefully maintained facade. She has a gut-feeling about the woman underneath the defenses, wants to know her, thinks she might even like her.)

“Isn’t it obvious?” Laurel slides her hand under Bonnie’s shirt, strokes up her ribcage until her fingertips brush against points that make Bonnie’s breath hitch.

“I’m confused,” Bonnie tries, as if there is anything the least bit unclear about Laurel’s greedy mouth and roaming hands.

Laurel strips Frank’s shirt off Bonnie and tosses it toward the couch.

“For six months, every time we’ve gotten drunk together, we’ve fucked,” she says, delighted at Bonnie’s sigh when she uses her body to press her against the wall. “This time I’m skipping the drunk part because in the morning I want to be able to remember exactly what you taste like.”

They make it the whole way to the bedroom before the blank space knocks them off course. It feels like a betrayal, even though Laurel knows they don’t have rules like that.She apologizes and kisses Bonnie one last time before hastily pulling on her clothes.

Once she’s home, she tells herself she’s just horny, or maybe lonely. It isn’t that she wants to know what it would be like to fuck Bonnie without Frank.(It is exactly that.)

 

Neither of them tells Frank, but somehow he knows. The next time all three of them are together, Laurel senses him watching her as she makes Bonnie’s back arch up off the bed. This time Bonnie doesn’t kick them out after. When Laurel comes back from the bathroom, Frank nods toward the space in the middle of the bed.

“I don’t want to have to climb over one of you when I have to take a leak,” he says. It’s an excuse, but Laurel isn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

When she’s settled, Frank spoons her. Laurel starts to reach out to pull Bonnie into her arms, but there’s an invisible barrier between them. It wasn’t there when they were naked and breathless a few minutes ago. Laurel wants to batter it down, but she knows not to press the boundaries of what this is.

Wide awake in the dark, Laurel reminds herself it’s just sex, biology, autonomic responses. Stimulate the right bundle of nerves the right way, flood the brain with dopamine and oxytocin and anyone would think they were in love. 

(It hasn't been “just sex” in a long time and in the moment it is very clearly something more.)

 

A few weeks and a half-dozen sleepovers later, Frank tells them he’s going out with Asher for a beer.

“You don't like Asher,” Bonnie points out.

“He doesn't have many friends. Consider this my good deed of the week.” Frank shrugs into his leather jacket. Laurel watches an entire series of emotions flicker across his face before he adds, “I figure, maybe you two want some time alone, without the distraction of my mesmerizing sex appeal.”

“You give yourself too much credit,” Bonnie quips, but she’s smiling.

Laurel waits until Frank’s almost out the door before she tugs him over.She presses her palms against his chest and smooths the fabric of his shirt as she considers her words.

“You won't feel left out?” Laurel mumbles, forcing herself to meet Frank’s eyes. She almost adds “if I fuck her without you” but she doesn’t, because this isn’t about fucking and they both know it.

Frank shrugs. He pulls her close and kisses her.(It’s sweet and brief and isn’t about fucking, either.)

“I like that you like each other,” he says finally, glancing back to the kitchen where Bonnie’s on the phone, sorting out something for Annalise. Laurel follows his gaze and wonders how much she can want or have before she has to admit she’s spoiled, selfish and greedy. (Those aren't even the worst things that could be said about her, but for some reason they sting the most.)

 

Laurel and Bonnie sit on the couch with a foot of space between them like they haven't been making each other come for months. Laurel can't stand the tension, so she pours them shots of tequila.

“Frank thinks I like you,” she says finally.

“He said that?”

“Yep. And he thinks you like me.”

“Frank thinks we like each other.” Bonnie’s voice has the slightest edge on it, a hook of tone Laurel rarely hears when they’re not at work.

Laurel watches Bonnie, waits for something, anything to tell her if she should push ahead or retreat.Bonnie sits placidly, walls on all sides, and eventually Laurel accepts that she’ll be walking into this blind.

“He's right,” she says, plunking her glass down on the table and turning to Bonnie. She takes one of her hands and squeezes it, feels Bonnie’s impulse to pull away as distinctly as the moment she chooses not to.“I do like you.”

“I don't even know what that means,” Bonnie says in a voice that’s quiet, wary, weary.

“It means looking at you gives me butterflies in my stomach.” Laurel tilts her head and studies the art on the wall behind Bonnie. “Which is appropriate, considering.Why so much butterfly stuff?”

“I like them.”

“But they symbolize something for you, right?Rebirth?”

“And freedom.” Bonnie shrugs. “Or it’s neither of those things and I just really loved Reading Rainbow as a kid.”

Laurel grins and leans toward her. Fingers whisper down the curve of Bonnie’s jaw, lips press together and then drift to cheek and temple.

“I’m so into you,” Laurel whispers in Bonnie’s ear. “Let me show you how much.”

Bonnie’s shirt is off and she’s tugging at Laurel’s jeans before Laurel can clarify.

“Not like that,” she says, adding “yet” when Bonnie’s face falls.

 

“I'm not sure why it's called the Rose Tattoo,” Laurel says when they’re seated at their table on the upper balcony. “But I thought you might like it. Once the sun goes down, they turn on the strings of fairy lights.”

“It's beautiful.” Bonnie looks down at the sprawling greenery of the first floor atrium. Laurel watches her eyes follow a small flash of orange, floating between flowers.

“I’m glad the butterflies are still out,” Laurel murmurs.

Bonnie turns wary eyes back to her and crosses her arms over her chest.

“I have no idea what your endgame is here,” she says sharply. “But if you’re trying to make me fall for you, this is a very good start.”

 

Bonnie tries to hang up her demure blue dress, but Laurel takes it and tosses it aside, presses her lips to Bonnie’s throat and brings more chaos into her life. She gently pushes Bonnie back onto the bed and climbs on top of her.It reminds her of the last time they were here and she wonders if having Frank’s permission actually changes anything.

“There's an empty space,” Bonnie says. “Is it like that when I'm not around?”

Laurel thinks about it for a long time. She runs her palms over Bonnie’s skin, light, reassuring touches from collarbone to navel, over her breasts and down the curve of her side. Her hands linger at Bonnie’s underwear for a moment before she responds.

“I can't remember. I think… maybe since this started you've always been around.” She's suddenly uncomfortable. “Is it like that when you're alone with him?”

“I haven't been.” A pause. “What have we gotten ourselves into here?”

Laurel isn’t sure, but the question unlatches a door that she’s going to shove the rest of the way open.

“Could you love more than one person at the same time?” she asks.

“Could you?”

“Yeah..”

“Could you be in love with more than one?” Bonnie asks quietly, suddenly more vulnerable than Laurel’s ever seen her, as if someone had peeled away her defenses like an eggshell, leaving a gentle, delicate woman with her heart beating on the outside.

“I think so. But will you let me?” Laurel asks, her voice low.

It's too much. Bonnie pulls Laurel on top of her and kisses her hard. They soften, press against each other, both of them reshaping themselves to fit more seamlessly. Words are complicated, but this they know. It’s simple, familiar, comfortable, and Laurel lets herself melt into it.

Her hand cups Bonnie through her underwear and Bonnie squirms, like the first time except now they're sober and alone. (The world is still spinning, but this time it’s spinning and stretching and contracting into something different than before.)

Laurel insists on taking her time. She kisses each of Bonnie’s palms, her wrists, the inside of her elbows. Her lips lay down invisible paths, mile markers that on someone else might mean “this is mine” but tonight say only “I was here.”

She lingers on Bonnie’s lower abdomen, tracing delicate white stretch marks with her fingertips. She tries to imagine Bonnie as a chubby teenager but fails. (She can't imagine her as a teenager at all, but she wishes she could. She’d asked Frank once if he’d ever seen photos of Bonnie as a child. “Leave it alone,” he’d said.)

“You're such a tease,” Bonnie whines as Laurel tugs on the elastic of her underwear, then lets it snap back against her skin.

“It's called ‘foreplay’ and I'm excellent at it.”

“You’re excellent at everything.”

Laurel grins. She pulls off the last bit of Bonnie’s clothing, leaving her exposed on the stark white sheets.

“You want my hands or my mouth?” she asks. Bonnie sucks in a breath, considers for a moment, hand reaching out to caress Laurel’s cheek.

“Both. Start with your mouth.”

Laurel grins and scoots down, settles herself between pale, shaking thighs.

“Is this turned on shivering or nervous shivering?” She presses her palm flat, feels the trembling.

“I'm not sure.”

“You want to take a break?”

Bonnie reaches down and takes her hand, and Laurel realizes she's shaking too.

“Come up here,” Bonnie mumbles. Laurel crawls up her body and settles in her arms.

“There's something wrong with me,” Laurel admits. She tucks her face into the curve of Bonnie’s neck.

“There are so many things wrong with all of us.”

“I can hear Michaela now, complaining about greedy bisexuals.”

“You’d tell her?”

Laurel’s body shakes a little harder, but she presses on. “If I let myself fall in love with you, I won't want to hide that.”

“You're worried she'd judge you?”

“For being in love with a woman? No. For being in love with a man and a woman at the same time? Yeah, she'd judge.”

“She'd be jealous.” Bonnie winds their fingers together. “Most people don't have that much space in them.”

“There's no space left in me. Between Frank and…” Laurel takes a huge breath. “We keep talking about this like it's an if or a maybe, but you're in me already. I'm not sure when it stopped being just drunken hooking up, but it did and now this is something different. For me, at least.”

Bonnie nods. She pulls away and looks into Laurel’s face, then kisses her. It's sweet, gentle in a way that makes Laurel feel a little giddy, but then it changes color and tone, pinks into deep reds.

Laurel straddles one of Bonnie’s thighs and kisses her again, feels the vibration of a moan in red lips as her fingers lazily toy with soft, oddly straight pubic hair. (Laurel waxes hers bare because it makes her more sensitive, makes it so obvious when she's wet, but when she's doing the fucking, she loves the changes in texture between hair and skin and slick.)

When they're with Frank, they're both verbal. Laurel’s into pet names and encouragement, ‘god yes’ and ‘just like that, baby’ and Bonnie’s bossy, filthy, graphic. Right now they're silent.

Laurel can't look away as she slides her fingers lightly against Bonnie. Usually by the time she's doing this, Frank is distracting her with his beard against her neck and his fingers on her clit. Now her senses are full of the woman underneath her, whose mouth tastes sweet from the cheesecake they’d shared and whose skin smells like lilacs.

Bonnie's a slow build, so no matter how much Laurel wants to make her come apart, she has to be patient. She provokes with gentleness, uses her fingertips to tease. As her hand starts to slip more fluidly, Laurel studies the marks Bonnie’s teeth dent in her bottom lip, the tiny wrinkles at the bridge of her nose that come and go, the way her long eyelashes lay flat against her face when her eyes are closed.

If Laurel could be as shrewd about her romantic entanglements as she is about her professional strategies, she’d be miles away, in a dark bar flirting with some willowy, generic girl. That would be safe.

The tiny sounds Bonnie makes, the little “ohs” and “mmmms,” are not safe. The way Laurel’s heart pounds as she lets her fingers slide deeper?

That is definitely not safe.

“Should I use my mouth?” Laurel asks. When Bonnie breathes out a low, elongated “yes,” Laurel moves down again, exhaling softly against the skin of her inner thighs.

She feels an odd pang in her gut as she parts Bonnie with her tongue.

“It's a little weird without him,” Bonnie says, reading her thoughts. “Fucking you while you go down on me is probably Frank’s idea of heaven.”

Laurel chuckles, pushes deeper, tastes Bonnie and submerges herself in the moment.

“What's yours?” she asks when she comes up for air. “Your idea of heaven.”

“It’s stupid.”

Laurel’s eyes narrow. She shifts so she's on top, looking down into Bonnie’s flushed face.

“Tell me anyway.”

She waits and waits. She's about to give up when Bonnie finally answers in a mumble.

“Falling asleep between you and Frank.” Bonnie’s eyes flicker across Laurel’s face.“What’s yours?”

“I don’t know,” she answers truthfully. “But I’ll tell you when I figure it out.”

 

The next morning Annalise calls them in early. Laurel’s shirt is down two buttons and her underwear are AWOL, so she's wearing a borrowed blue sweater and a pair of dainty purple panties. It’s a little awkward, sitting in the office in an outfit clearly cobbled together from what she wore yesterday and Bonnie's closet. Even with her skinny jeans and boots, the sweater is a little too classic Winterbottom to fool a keen observer. Frank notices it right away and sidles up to Laurel, leaning down to speak low in her ear.

“I guess it went well?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Laurel replies.

“You’re wearing her clothes. And her lipstick,” he adds with a devilish grin.

Laurel feels her face getting hot.She glares at him.

“Most men wouldn’t be so into their girlfriend screwing someone else.”

“Good thing neither of you are my girlfriend.” His eyes narrow.“You and Bonnie… is it a thing?”

“We aren’t having this conversation here.”

He studies her and she meets his gaze, daring him to push her. The look puts him off balance and he falters.

“You and Bon missed me at least a little bit, though, right?”

“You and Bonnie went out last night?” Asher asks, suddenly appearing at Laurel’s elbow. “Wait, why are you wearing her sweater?”

“What makes you think it’s her sweater?”

“Dude. If you only knew how many times I unbuttoned that thing. Once I got a little too enthusiastic, popped a button off? Bonbon made me sew it back on before she’d let me get down to…” Asher trails off.

“Don't hurt your brain thinking too hard, Asher,” Frank says jovially. “You know Sindy with an S likes you for your smarts.”

“Sindy with an S?” Laurel asks, a bemused smile on her lips. “The two of you went to a strip club?”

“We had dudes’ night while you and Bonnie had girls’ night,” Frank says. Asher seems to accept the idea these two things are equivalent and drops the subject in favor of reminiscing about Sindy’s lap dance skills.

Laurel sees Bonnie come into the room as Asher rambles, watches her pass behind Frank and give his shoulder a gentle squeeze. He looks relieved and Laurel thinks he might be truly worried they’ll like each other more than they like him.

“He’s scared,” Laurel tells Bonnie in a low voice, their bodies a whisper apart in the hallway of Annalise’s new office. “He’s wondering if we’ll leave him behind. He needs to know we…” She stops herself before she says those particular words. They've never used them before and she's not going to be the first, but Bonnie nods like she heard them anyway.

“Then let's make sure he does.”

 

That night they kneel in front of Frank, together. They lavish attention on him, tug him between them, both a little greedier than they might have been otherwise.

“Anything?” Frank asks, incredulous. Bonnie nods.

“If you've been nursing some secret fantasy, now’s the time,” she says. “You want me to beg? I’ll do it. You can tie me up. Fuck me however you want to.”

(The offer surprises Laurel. Bonnie’s boundaries may have been unspoken, but they've always been clear, even during their most drunken collisions. She asks Bonnie about it afterward. “I meant it, but I also knew he wouldn't ask me to.” “What makes you so sure?” Laurel asks and there's a flicker of something in Bonnie’s face that scares her. “I just am,” Bonnie replies and Laurel drops it.)

Frank doesn't make Bonnie beg or tie her up, although Laurel worries he might when he goes to the closet and comes back with a pale pink silk scarf. Bonnie holds out her wrists, but he shakes his head, grins and ties the scarf around Laurel’s eyes like a blindfold.

Frank leads her to a chair and then he makes needy, desperate noises come out of Bonnie. Laurel squirms as she pictures what’s happening. She wonders if she’s more turned on than she would have been if she weren’t jealous. (And in that moment she’s definitely jealous, of both of them.)

They switch and Frank fucks Laurel slowly and thoroughly while Bonnie listens but doesn't see. He leaves Laurel flat on her back, blissed-out. She turns her head and watches him kiss Bonnie as he carefully unties the blindfold. Her chest flutters and she decides to stop trying to define it.

She's surprised when Frank sits in the chair and ties the blindfold around his own eyes.

“I know it ain't all about me,” he explains. “But I'm definitely going to enjoy imagining what you're doing.”

“You need a break first?” Bonnie murmurs in her ear, but Laurel’s greedy, so greedy.

 

When they’re all exhausted and high on the afterglow, Laurel gets out of the bed and gently rearranges them so Bonnie is in the middle.She gets back in, curls herself toward Bonnie who’s on her side facing Frank.

This time, Laurel doesn’t stop herself from reaching out. Bonnie goes rigid in her arms for a moment, then she takes a long, deep breath.Laurel can feel Bonnie pushing herself to relax.

“So is it heaven?” Laurel whispers. Bonnie tugs Laurel’s hand up to her mouth and kisses her fingers gently.

“If it’s not, then it’s close.”

Laurel isn’t sentimental and she doesn’t see declarations of love in mundane conversation, but a voice deep inside her says what Bonnie said means something.

 

They fall into it.Laurel is surprised when Frank offers to make dinner for the three of them, downright shocked when he brings it up at the office.

“Annalise needs this by morning,” Bonnie grumbles, gesturing to a file.

“Can I help?” Laurel asks, and it’s Bonnie’s turn to be surprised.

“That’s a great idea,” Frank chimes in.“Laurel will help you with work, and I’ll have dinner on the table when you both get home.”

“I didn’t know you had housewife aspirations,” Bonnie says dryly, but Laurel knows her well enough by now to hear what she’s not saying.

None of them point out that Frank said “home,” or that all of them knew “home” meant Bonnie’s house, the same way none of them acknowledge what it means that Frank’s shaving cream sits on the bathroom sink, Laurel’s favorite microwave popcorn is always stocked in the cupboard and both of their wardrobes now fill the closet and dresser of Bonnie’s guest room.It’s as if they’ll jinx it if they talk about it, so they keep driving to work in separate cars (even though the others figured things out ages ago.)

 

It's an ordinary night a few months later that changes things, makes it impossible for them to avoid talking about it. They sit rigidly around the dining room table, voices low and strained.They want different things, and it disrupts the comfortable equilibrium they've found.In the end, they all have to bend. The three of them are tied together for the rest of their lives, whether they like it or not. (Really it’s only two of them who are bound by it, but the third is invested, so she stays.)

 

The baby looks like Frank. She has green eyes and dark hair. She doesn’t have a name for three days after she’s born, just “Baby Girl Delfino” on the card on the incubator.

“We should call her Eloise,” Bonnie says softly as they watch her through the glass. “It means ‘warrior’.”

“Eloise Delfino. That’ll look good on the headstone,” Laurel mutters. Frank drags her away, around a corner, stares down at her shaking his head.

“Why the fuck would you say something like that?”

“Why are we wasting time talking about names for a baby that’s going to die?” Laurel realizes she’s clenching her fists. When she opens them and turns her palms up, she can see where her fingernails left deep crescent-moon marks in her palms.She looks at Frank and the expression on his face knocks the rage out of her.“I’m tired of pretending everything’s going to be okay, even though it just keeps getting worse.”

“It could still be okay. Bonnie’s right. Our kid is a fighter.”

Laurel hears the inclusion there. They were all there when she was conceived, even if it was an accident. They’ll all be there as long as she lives, even though Laurel thinks it won’t be long.Bonnie stays resolutely hopeful as she watches through the glass, and if sheer force of will could make a baby live, theirs would be immortal.Frank makes sure they eat and take breaks, soothes them as well as he can, pretends he’s a rock even though Laurel keeps catching him wiping tears from his face.(Laurel just waits and wonders what she’ll do when this unfathomable loss breaks them apart.)

 

“I never wanted kids,” Laurel whispers a few days later. Frank’s asleep, but Bonnie clings to her tighter.

“Me neither.” Bonnie shifts, vibrates differently. The change makes Laurel’s stomach drop. “I had a baby. She died.”

Laurel wonders if Bonnie’s lost it. She remembers hearing the whispers about Annalise’s phantom baby and her whole body gets tense.

“Do you mean Eloise, Bon?” she asks quietly.

“No, I mean… before. That’s how I met Annalise.” Bonnie sounds sleepy, hazy, like they’re having this conversation in a dream. “I was young and screwed up.I didn’t want to believe I was pregnant, didn’t think I could be until I went into labor. I didn’t know what to do. I had her in my dorm room. Everyone thought I killed her. Annalise saved me. She took my case, let me stay in her house once I was out on bail… and she eventually found an expert to testify the baby never took a breath.”

“Was that true?”

“I don’t know.” Bonnie blinks at the ceiling. “If I hadn’t been so scared, if I’d gone to a hospital instead of…”

“You don’t know that,” Laurel protests. She feels Bonnie nod.

“She’d be almost twenty now.” Bonnie wipes away her tears with her sleeve. “Two decades later and I’m still so scared.”

Laurel doesn’t know what to say to that, so she pulls Bonnie closer. They’re quiet for a long time before Laurel speaks.

“Who was her father?” she asks.

“I don’t know. I did a lot of… I drank a lot back then and ended up in bed with people I shouldn’t have.”

Laurel flashes on the first time and the world spins.

“What was her name?” she asks, and Bonnie starts to laugh like she’s about to break in half, the kind of laugh-cry that could be either or both.

“Lauren,” she finally gets out, and then Laurel starts laughing too until tears are running down her face and she’s hiccoughing.

Frank lifts his head, sees both of them hysterical. He blearily reaches out, pulls them in, Bonnie right up against his chest and Laurel right up against Bonnie. He has to stretch a little, but he does so he can fold his hands over Laurel’s heart.

 

The next morning, Laurel asks Frank if he knew. He looks anywhere but at her and suddenly it wasn’t just him being overprotective, dragging her off when she made the headstone comment. “Don’t tell anybody,” he says quietly. “Only people who know are you, me and Annalise.”

“What else don’t I know?” she asks. Frank wraps her in his arms and she lets herself sag against his chest.

“Some things are best to leave alone,” he says, and for once Laurel believes him.

(Almost. She buries herself in research until she finds an article about a man with Bonnie’s last name being sentenced to thirty life terms. She closes the tab without reading further.)

 

A few months later the three of them are curled up together again, exhausted, when a wail pierces the quiet.

“Whose turn is it?” Bonnie grumbles, her face pressed into the pillow.

“I’ll go,” Laurel says.

She reaches into the crib and picks up the tiny girl. She changes her diaper on the changing table and then unbuttons her own nightshirt a little bit so she can lay Eloise against her bare skin.

“Hey, baby,” she says softly, gently bouncing from foot to foot. “I guess it’s time we talk about a few things. So most kids get two adults, or maybe just one, but you’ve got three. That’s mostly my fault and I’m sorry. Maybe one day you’ll find a way to use it to your advantage. Like if Mama says no, and Mom says no, you can go to your Dad. He’ll never be able to say no to you. So there’s a bright side.” She slowly sits in the rocking chair. “So, uh… one of your mothers grew you in her belly for seven and a half months. Usually babies take more than 9 months, but you were impatient. You were very sick at first and we weren’t sure you were going to live. I was so scared. That was strange, because when I first found out we were going to have you, I didn’t want to. That sounds awful but… it seemed like a bad idea, but Mama and Mom and Dad all talked about it, a lot. They wanted you so badly I didn’t want to be the only one who didn’t. I never thought I’d have a kid. I didn’t think I’d be very good at it, but… you make me want to be good at it. I know you're not actually hearing any of the words I’m saying, but it feels good to say them. I didn’t know I could love anybody the way I love you.”

“Just when I think I couldn't love you more,” a soft voice says from the doorway.

Laurel looks up and sees Bonnie leaning against the doorframe, tangled hair lit up like a halo by the light from the hallway.

“I thought you were too sleepy to get up.”

“I got cold.” Bonnie drifts over and runs her fingers over wisps of reddish hair. “If I didn't know better I'd say they gave us the wrong baby. I had no idea they could lose their hair and have it grow in a different color.”

“My mom says that happened with me. My hair was light blonde when I was born,” Laurel says. “Want to sit with us?”

“Where?” Bonnie asks, but she lets Laurel hand Eloise to her anyway.

Laurel gently pulls Bonnie into her lap, slightly sideways so they can cuddle Eloise between them. It's the closest thing Laurel’s ever had to a Hallmark moment.

“I bet you didn't think you'd end up here.” Bonnie murmurs.

“Nope. You?”

“Never. It makes sense though.”

“Why?” Laurel asks.

“I was never safe with the family I was born into. It looked normal— mom, dad, two little girls. The perfect little unit, except I knew how sick it was once you scratched the surface. I couldn't trust that kind of family, so I made one of my own.”

“Would you have had a baby with Frank if it was just the two of you?”

Bonnie thinks for a long time before responding.

“I don't think so. What about you?”

“Definitely not,” Laurel says. “I wasn't ready. In some ways I'm still not.”

“No one ever is.” Bonnie shakes her head, seemingly anticipating Laurel’s next question. “Don’t ask if I would have done it with just you.”

“It won't hurt my feelings.”

“No.But it would hurt Frank’s.” Bonnie says. Laurel looks from Bonnie to Eloise and back again as she searches for a different implication for Bonnie’s words but finds none. “Frank and I—no matter how much I love him, and I do— we’re both such disasters.”

“You would have made it work.”

“We wouldn't have even tried, Laurel.” She brushes Laurel’s hair back off her face. “Just think what we would have missed out on.”

Laurel looks down at Eloise, now fast asleep, her dark eyelashes fluttering slightly as she dreams.

“That's a photo that could go on a freakin Christmas card.”

Frank hovers near the door, his phone in his hand.

“You wanna get in on this?” Laurel asks with a smile.

“Chair’s a little too small.” He reaches down and Laurel passes Eloise to him, a warmth flooding her chest at how tenderly he cradles her tiny body in his arms. “I finished putting that weird bed sidecar thing together today. Let's just bring her in with us.”

Frank’s smile reminds Laurel they’re all here because they were searching for something, for a place, a person— a family to call their own.

“That sounds perfect,” Bonnie mumbles, reluctantly moving from her place in Laurel’s lap.

A few minutes later, Laurel is curled up, one hand on Eloise in the co-sleeper. Bonnie is warm against her back and one of Frank’s arms rests loosely across them both.

Laurel knows she should sleep, but she wants to breathe in this incredible moment for as long as she possibly can. This embarrassment of riches is far more than she deserves.She lies there motionless for a long time, as Frank’s breathing becomes regular and then morphs into a rhythmic snore.

“I can feel you thinking,” Bonnie murmurs against the back of her neck. “Penny for your thoughts?”

“I don't deserve this.”

Bonnie doesn't reply for a long time, and Laurel isn't expecting what she says when she finally does.

“Did you deserve to get kidnapped when you were 16?” Bonnie asks in a quiet version of her clipped, precise courtroom voice. It's jarring for Laurel, hearing that tone again. (Ice-cold Bonnie is a specter, replaced long ago by a woman who sings lullabies in French and makes cinnamon rolls from scratch.)

“What does that have to do with anything?” Laurel asks.

“Answer the question. Did you deserve to get kidnapped when you were 16?”

“No.”

“Did Frank deserve to grow up in jail?”

“No.”

“Did I deserve the things my father did to me?”

“God, no. Of course not. But I don't understand how that—” Laurel tries to protest but Bonnie interrupts her.

“Sometimes the worst things happen to us, even when we’ve done nothing to deserve them. Sometimes the best things happen. There is no order to the universe, Laurel.” Bonnie pulls Laurel tight against her chest and sighs.“Most people wouldn't call this their ideal life. If it’s yours… just let yourself enjoy it.”

“This isn’t my ideal life,” Laurel says quietly a few minutes later. She rolls over and smiles when it’s plain on Bonnie’s face that she doesn’t believe that for a second.

“Then what is?” Bonnie asks, playing along.Laurel shrugs.

“I don’t know,” she says.“But this is definitely my idea of heaven.”

**Author's Note:**

> A happy ending, whaaaaa? 
> 
> I love the idea that they each bring different strengths to the relationship, and that Laurel is the stabilizing influence that ultimately made their family possible. 
> 
> I intentionally left the baby's biological mother ambiguous. Of my two beta readers, one thought it was definitely Bonnie and the other said it was obviously Laurel. They both made excellent points to back up their theories. I'd love it if you'd leave who you think it was (and why if you feel like it) in the comments.


End file.
